Richard Thomalla

Richard Wolfgang Thomalla ( Annahof , 23 of October of 1903 – Jičín , December of maypole of 1945 ?) Was an architect officer and the Schutzstaffel (SS), and the main designer of the death camps Nazis of Operation Reinhard .

Biography

In 1932, Thomalla joined the Nazi Party with the number 1,238,872, and in the Schutzstaffel (SS) with the number 41.206.

Second World War

The first camp of death built under the supervision of Thomalla was that of Bełżec . Construction began on November 1, 1941 and was completed in March 1942. He then proceeded to design and supervise the construction of Sobibor in March 1942. The workers employed for the construction of the camp were local inhabitants from the nearby towns and villages . During his

Construction began on 1 November 1941 and was completed in March 1942. He then proceeded to design and supervise the construction of Sobibor in March 1942. Workers employed for building the camp were local people from neighboring villages and towns. During this preliminary stage, Thomalla served as commander of the Sonderkommando at Sobibor. 1 The Sonderkommando were special groups composed of 80 Jews brought from nearby ghettos to carry out construction work as slave labor. A ten Ukrainian squad trained in the concentration camp Trawniki watched the Sonderkommando . At the end of the construction of the camp, these Jews were executed. 2 When Thomalla completed the works that had been assigned to him in Sobibor, he was replaced by Franz Stangl in April 1942. He was then sent to Treblinka , where he copied Sobibor’s construction model.

Between July 1942 and October 1943, about 850,000 people were killed in Treblinka. 3 4 Some unconfirmed sources indicate that Thomalla would have been executed by the NKVD Soviet on May 12, 1945, a few days after the end of the war, the Czechoslovak city of Jičín . 2 5

Bibliography

Back to top↑ Ernst Klee, Dressen, Willi, Riess, Volker The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders , ISBN 1-56852-133-2 , p. 231